Weeknight
3491 recipes found
Spiced Chickpeas With Cauliflower and Roasted Lemon
In this hearty, meatless main course, chickpeas and potatoes are coated in a tomato-tinged spice paste and roasted until crunchy and browned. At the same time and in the same oven, cauliflower and tomatoes are cooked along with thinly sliced lemons until soft and caramelized. Just before serving, everything is tossed altogether and drizzled with an herbed, garlicky yogurt sauce. It’s a complete and satisfying meal that’s perfect for vegetable lovers. Meyer lemons work particularly well here because they are milder and sweeter than regular lemons. But use whichever you can find.
Broiled Turmeric Salmon With Corn and Green Beans
This meal marries charred flavors with bright summer vegetables, and no grill is required. Broiling salmon skin side up creates crispy skin without drying out the delicate flesh. Alongside your salmon, blister green beans and corn, then toss them with lime juice, raw corn and red onion for a balance of crunchy and tender, sweet and scorched. Turmeric and red-pepper flakes bring earthiness alongside the sweetness of the fish, corn and green beans, but garam masala, cumin or jerk seasoning would also work well.
Rosemary-Garlic Roasted Chicken and Gnocchi
The classic combination of chicken, potatoes, rosemary, garlic and lemon dazzles in this sheet-pan meal. Standing in for the potatoes are shelf-stable potato gnocchi, which offer many textures at once when roasted instead of boiled: pillowy-soft, crisp and chewy. Squeeze some lemon right onto the sheet pan, and as you scrape up the schmaltzy, garlicky bits, the juices and drippings glaze the gnocchi, leaving no drop of the chicken’s renderings wasted. It’s hard not to eat the gnocchi right from the pan, but if you can wait, serve everything alongside a green salad.
Maple-Roasted Tofu With Butternut Squash and Bacon
A small amount of bacon adds a lot of smoky flavor to sweet maple-roasted vegetables and glazed tofu. It’s a colorful, cozy sheet-pan meal for tofu lovers who also eat meat, or bacon eaters who are trying to eat less meat. To make this dish vegan, skip the bacon, and add 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika to the maple syrup mixture. Dicing the squash into small cubes helps it roast at the same rate as the brussels sprouts, so be sure to keep the pieces around 1/2 inch in size.
Broiled Salmon and Asparagus With Herbs
Many people fear the broiler because they don’t know how to use it, or they’re worried they’ll overdo it and end up with a scorched dinner. But when used properly, it’s a useful tool ideal for crisping chicken skin, charring vegetables and melting cheese. Broiling is also a great method for perfectly cooking salmon: It yields a deeply browned crust and a tender center that isn’t overcooked. All broilers are different, and knowing the strength of yours and being aware of any uneven “hot spots” help maximize the efficiency of it. (As your dish cooks, look to see if it’s cooking evenly across the surface, which will tell you if you need to move things around.) In this recipe, soy-and-mustard-coated salmon and asparagus cook under the broiler, and are topped with an herb salad for a hit of brightness, freshness and acidity.
Sheet-Pan Tostadas With Black Beans and Peppers
In this vegetarian sheet-pan meal, crisp tortillas are topped with chile-laced black beans, sweet roasted peppers, avocado and plenty of crumbled queso fresco or grated Cheddar. A cumin salt, flecked with lime zest and sprinkled on right at the end, adds both brightness and a musky spice flavor. You will need 3 sheet pans for this. If you have only 2, crisp the tortillas in a skillet on the stovetop instead of in the oven.
Peanut Butter-Glazed Salmon and Green Beans
This fast and fun weeknight meal reveals an unexpected use for peanut butter, transforming it into a savory five-ingredient sauce. The pantry favorite is combined with tangy lemon juice, fragrant ginger and toasted sesame oil to create a rich, supernutty glaze that pairs well with fatty salmon. Here the salmon is roasted on a rack of green beans, but a bed of broccoli florets would be an excellent alternative. The sweet-salty glaze can be made a day ahead and brought to room temperature before using.
Tofu and Green Beans With Chile Crisp
I love to cook with chile crisp, a fiery hot-pepper condiment born in the Sichuan Province of China that generally relies on fried shallots and garlic for texture, and on any number of umami-rich special ingredients for distinction and oomph. It’s magical: a boon to noodle soups and kitchen-sink stir-fries, to eggs and cucumbers, to plain steamed fish. Here, I use it as the base of a marinade and topping for baked tofu and green beans, with black vinegar, a little sesame oil, a wisp of honey, minced garlic and ginger, along with scallions and cilantro. But you could use the mixture on a mitten and have a very nice meal.
Spicy Sheet-Pan Sausage and Squash
Like chicken thighs, whose rendered skin leaves behind a puddle of schmaltz for frying vegetables, bread or beans, sausage yields a delicious fat for cooking. Paired with butternut squash and crisped in a hot oven, its spicy fat slicks the sweet squash, while parsley and lemon cut through all the richness. Feel free to switch up the squash for carrots, broccoli, potatoes: Any vegetables that are good roasted will work well in that liquid gold. If the meal seems light, bulk it up by topping with a cup of feta or rinsed canned chickpeas, adding arugula or watercress to the parsley, or serving it all on a bed of kale or mustard greens, like a warm salad.
Sheet-Pan Chicken With Rhubarb and Red Onion
This easy yet robust dish celebrates rhubarb’s savory side. Here, a bit of honey, some sliced sweet red onion and the rich juices of roasted chicken thighs and drumsticks temper its tartness. Serve this dish with a crackly baguette or some rice to catch the tangy sauce at the bottom of the pan. It’s the best part.
Sheet-Pan Sausage With Spring Onions, Potatoes and Mustard
Fresh spring onions make this effortless sausage and potato sheet-pan supper feel elegant, but you could just as easily use scallions, leeks or nearly any other member of the allium family. The spring onions and potatoes make the perfect bed for roasting: They prop up the sausages so they brown instead of steam, and they absorb the sausage drippings while doing so. A spicy, tangy mustard relish cuts the richness of the sausage and offsets the sweetness of the spring onions. Should you have leftovers, they are excellent tucked between slices of toasted bread smeared with plenty of mayonnaise and more mustard.
Bricklayer-Style Nachos
Bricklayer-style beef, or puntas al albañil, made with tender pieces of beef, salty bacon and sometimes chorizo in a chunky fire-roasted salsa, is a beloved taco filling in Mexico. Once a common snack available near construction sites in central Mexico, it became popular beyond street food stands, expanding into homes and restaurants over the years. Here it’s used as the foundation for nachos, topped with mounds of melted cheese, tangy queso fresco, creamy avocado and crunchy scallions for a hearty, delicious meal.
Lemony Shrimp and Bean Stew
With minimal prep and a quick cook time, this shrimp stew feels elegant for such an easy weeknight meal. You can also take the dish in a number of directions: Substitute the shrimp with an equal amount of flaky white fish or even seared scallops, or stretch the dish into a meal for six by stirring in some butter and serving over cooked spaghetti or rigatoni. A good glug of your best olive oil would also be a welcome.
Grilled Shrimp With Chile and Garlic
Shrimp are a treat and should be handled as such — and this recipe guarantees grilled shrimp that are reliably juicy, charred and seasoned. First, try this trick from J. Kenji López-Alt for plump meat with a browned crust: Stir a little baking soda into mayonnaise, and season it with salt, garlic and chile, which will intensify in the mayonnaise’s fat. Coat the shrimp in the mayonnaise mixture and refrigerate for up to 30 minutes, then grill mostly on one side to avoid overcooking. Eat over grains, lettuces, lemon pasta or noodle salad; in tortillas or pita; or popped right into your mouth. As far as seasonings go, start with chile and garlic, then switch up subsequent batches with lemon zest, Old Bay, ginger and more.
Hot Honey Shrimp
Chile powder adds sting, honey lends sweetness, and butter gives a creamy richness to these succulent roasted shrimp. Even better, the dish comes together in minutes, making it an ideal after-work meal or extremely speedy appetizer. The shrimp are also excellent tucked into a baguette for a shrimp sandwich. If you happen to have a jar of hot honey (chile-spiced honey), you can use that instead of combining the honey and cayenne. Just be sure to use a light hand with the lime juice at the very end; hot honey also contains vinegar, so taste as you go. If you'd like to double the recipe, you can. Just use two baking pans so as not to crowd the shrimp.
Shrimp Étouffée
Found in both Creole and Cajun cuisines, étouffée is most commonly made with crawfish tails, which have a distinct flavor, but crawfish have a short season and aren’t readily available in most places. This version, with shrimp, is more than a worthy substitute, and an excellent dish all its own. The dish takes its name from the French word "étouffée,” which nods to its protein being smothered with sauce. This recipe uses a shortcut version of a roux: The flour is added after the onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic have already been sautéed in the butter. If you omit the hot sauce, add apple cider vinegar in its place.
Buttery Kimchi Shrimp
Kimchi, a classic Korean dish of fermented vegetables, creates a subtle, funky sauce for sweet shrimp when stirred into melted butter. Some kimchis can be spicier than others, so taste yours before deciding if you want to add heat with red-pepper flakes. A good squeeze of lime juice just before serving gives the whole dish a bright lift and really brings it together, so don’t even think about skipping it. Serve with sautéed bok choy or tatsoi on the side.
Hot-Sauce Shrimp
So much more than a condiment for your morning eggs, hot sauce can add kick to dips, soups, marinades, sauces and more. Because most include vinegar and salt in addition to chiles, all hot sauce needs to become a silky pan sauce is fat. That’s the approach used in this super-quick recipe, which tastes like a cross between Buffalo chicken wings and chile shrimp. After charring some scallions in the skillet, shrimp are cooked until plump and pink, then both are tossed with butter and hot sauce until glossy. Because hot sauces vary greatly in terms of heat, start with one tablespoon, then add more as you wish. If it’s too spicy for you, add more butter, or serve it with rice, crusty bread, beer, yogurt or ranch dressing to cut the heat.
Coconut Shrimp
No one really knows the origins of fried coconut shrimp, the crunchy, breaded kind that’s served in chain steakhouses and beachfront restaurants, but its roots are likely found in the tiki bar culture, which was all the rage in the United States after World War II, when access to tropical produce like coconuts and pineapples became an everyday thing. Using egg whites instead of whole eggs and cornstarch instead of flour yields shrimp that are simultaneously crunchy yet light, and go just as well with piña coladas as they do with Champagne. We paired ours with a simple spicy-sweet dip made with marmalade, Dijon mustard and Sriracha, but you can also serve them with store-bought sweet chile sauce.
Shrimp Stew for Two
A stew should be as comforting to cook as it is to eat. In this effortless one-pot meal, a spicy, aromatic broth is tinged red with gochugaru, a Korean red-pepper powder. You want to use jumbo shrimp or prawns for this; be sure to get shell-on crustaceans (and head-on if you can), as they’re essential to flavoring this simple dish with their incredible nuttiness. Bitter greens and sweet radishes add vegetal heft as well as complexity to the broth, which you should definitely sop up with bread or rice. If seafood dishes like bouillabaisse, cioppino and maeuntang excite you, then this brothy wonder will delight and nourish.
Brown-Butter Shrimp With Hazelnuts
Shrimp is an ideal weeknight ingredient, for both its versatility and its quick-cooking nature. This one-skillet meal pairs sweet shrimp with crunchy hazelnuts that are toasted in oil to awaken and refresh their rich, nutty flavor. Browned butter infused with garlic gently cooks the shrimp, keeping them tender and juicy, and a final addition of lemon juice turns the mixture into a tangy, rich pan sauce. Leftovers can be tossed with greens for a quick and satisfying salad, or used for a seafood-based fried rice.
Shrimp and Mango Tacos
This sweet and pungent combination of mango, shrimp, chilies and cumin is as quick to put together as a stir-fry. Indeed, if you don’t have corn tortillas on hand, serve the shrimp with rice.
Kung Pao Shrimp
The name of this dish is now written in English as gong bao shrimp, and this recipe takes inspiration from the American Chinese versions that come from the Sichuan Province of China. Here, flashes of chile heat shine in a glossy swirl of a salty, sour and sweet sauce. With a confetti blend of shrimp, peppers and peanuts, each mouthful is a little spicy and chewy, savory and crisp. The deep malty tang comes from Chinkiang vinegar, a jet-black condiment from China that is traditionally fermented from grains and aged in clay. It’s key to this dish and also delicious for dipping dumplings, saucing noodles and dressing vegetables. (Balsamic vinegar, similarly fermented and aged from grape juice in barrels, is a fun, fruity substitute.) With both vegetables and protein, this one-wok stir-fry is a complete meal with steamed rice.
Shrimp, Cilantro and Tamarind Soup
Goan cuisine is known for its bold use of sourness, heat and spices. Seafood occupies an important position in Goan food, and, in this shrimp soup, tamarind is used to provide sourness while chiles provide heat. Here, the raw shrimp are cooked slowly over low heat, helping the stock to develop its rich savoriness. But the method also works spectacularly with frozen shrimp, and you can use shrimp with their tails left on, if you prefer. Whatever you do, be sure to avoid using those thick, syrupy tamarind concentrates. They lack tamarind's fruity flavor and carry a noticeable artificial aftertaste. Serve with toasted slices of lightly buttered bread to finish off any remaining liquid in the soup bowl.